Week 1 of the football season is finally down, but there’s not too much time for Cal to celebrate its 58-21 win against North Texas on the road this past Saturday. This weekend, the Bears take on Auburn, which certainly will be a step up in terms of opponent quality.
Ahead of this week’s matchup, Cal head coach Justin Wilcox, OC Jake Spavital and DC Peter Sirmon — in addition to quarterback Ben Finley — talked about their thoughts coming away from Saturday’s win and their thoughts heading into the game against Auburn. Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s media availability.
Quarterbacks still have a question mark looming
After the quarterback battle was up in air for the duration of fall camp, the matter of who will be starting is once again a question mark that hangs over Cal football — though this time, for a different reason.
Golden Bears starting quarterback Sam Jackson V was injured at the beginning of the second quarter Saturday against UNT and was replaced by Ben Finley up until partway through the fourth quarter, when Fernando Mendoza took the reins. And while the coaching staff say that Jackson is back in practice, he is listed alongside Finley as the potential starter on Cal’s depth chart for its game against Auburn this Saturday.
Fret not, though, as even if Jackson is still out this weekend — though we don’t know what his status is at the moment — Finley has the support of his coaches should he have to take over the starting job. The NC State transfer threw for 279 yards, albeit with one interception, and looked confident for his first appearance in the blue and gold.
“(I) thought he showed strong command of the offense, (was) confident, stood there and threw the ball, was decisive,” said Wilcox. “He wasn’t perfect, he would tell you that, but I think he did a really good job.”
Although heading into Week 1 at North Texas the coaching staff said that they were aiming to have Jackson take all the snaps, it is now not out of the realm of possibility that two quarterbacks will be seeing the field at Memorial Stadium come Saturday.
When asked about the chance that two quarterbacks will play Saturday, Wilcox said “I suppose anything is on the table.”
Aside from mentioning that Jackson was back in practice, the coaches didn’t mention anything about the nature of his injury — so the question of who will start at quarterback has, once again, become an unknown for this Cal team.
